13
Mar
06

Utah’s New Brand

By Joshua Steimle 9 Comments Categories: Utah

utah_logo.gif“Life Elevated”

That’s Utah’s new brand. “The new slogan embodies the heart and soul of our state,” Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. said in a prepared statement. “It captures the essence of life in America’s greatest state.” I wonder who prepared the statement for him?

In what appears to have been a rather rude and unnecessary use of the Government Records Access and Management Act the Trib filed a request which forced the state government to reveal the new brand four weeks ahead of a planned presentation.


As I stated before when talking about Utah’s brand, I’m not sure a state brand has the potential to help a state so much as hurt it. Formulas and numbers will probably do more for Utah’s economy as businesses analyze the merits of relocating or opening offices to Utah. What I believe a brand can do for a select few people is put the idea on the table. Maybe. My personal bias is that the branding should be more focused on luring businesses to the state and less about the outdoor lifestyle, but then again, that’s just one man’s opinion and I can’t claim to have done the research W Communications or the state has.

Whether their intention or not, here were my initial thoughts upon seeing the new brand:

1. Looks like a sports team logo.

2. No, it actually looks like an outdoor products logo. Maybe the logo a backpack company would use.

3. Life Elevated? Ok, sure. I’m not excited and I’m not disappointed.

4. Something is a bit iffy about the bottom of that “U”…

I’m neutral. It doesn’t do much for me, but I can’t make too much fun of it either. Maybe that’s the best that can be hoped for. That leaves it up to the accompanying marketing materials to make it work, and perhaps that was the strategy all along.

Related posts:

  1. I’ve Been Quoted
  2. Branding Utah
  3. Marketing Quality to Price-Sensitive Customers
  • http://gregorybowers.com gb

    I have some buddies at W, and I’ve done some work for them before, so I generally have a very high opinion of the stuff they put out…. but… I’m underwhelmed. I’m wearing a hoodie right now, and I could fully see this mark emblazened across my chest right now, with some swoopy U of U hawk underneath.

    Apparently, “Life Elevated” wasn’t the first choice. When I first heard the slogan, my first thought was “life elevated… to something more than 5 years at the point of the mountain?”

  • http://www.mwi.com Joshua Steimle

    Like GB says, the work you see being produced by an agency doesn’t necessarily represent that agency’s best work. Sometimes an agency produces several options, one of which may be just to provide the client with more options even though the agency knows which one is best, but then the client chooses the worst option and messes up the whole plan. Not that this brand is necessarily bad, it just doesn’t seem good. Again, I’m feeling totally neutral about this new brand.

  • http://www.fusionfox.com Clifton

    I like it a little better than the Utah! campaign.

    Will they launch a new website, or just have new printed materials? Will there be a new license plate option? Is black and white our new state color pallette?

    Not bad for a state with the seagull as our state bird. Gotta love the animals that hang out at the dumpster.

  • http://www.eransworld.com/blogger.htm eran

    What Cost Utahan’s $1,166,666.67 Per Letter?

    Utah’s new slogan: “Life Elevated”.

    Are you kidding me? We spent $14 million bucks to hire W Communications to revamp Utah’s Travel and Tourism slogan and this is what we get. Hell, I can think of a better slogan how about “Cash Evaporated” or “Money Alleviated”! We should have hired Dave Werner…Who thinks this crap up? It seems every Governor gets to pick a logo. Governor Huntsman had “Seek Higher Ground” but that was too close to Colorado’s, and which had replaced former Gov. Mike Leavitt’s “Utah! Where Ideas Connect,” which had replaced former Gov. Norm Bangerter’s “Utah, a Pretty, Great State”.

    I think maybe Utah should follow the Australian tourism slogan bandwagon. Australia is boosting its advertising dollars by being controversial and getting world-wide free press, radio and TV advertising and Bloody hell: Australia swears by new ad campaign. The Australian commercial in Britain is being edited to include a beep where they say bloody. So why doesn’t Utah do something viral like “Utah Damn Hot“? And focus on Utah’s Hot Skiing, Hot Outdoor Life, Hot Business Community, Hot Film Festival, and Hot Nightlife (ok maybe not that one).

  • http://www.mwi.com Joshua Steimle

    I don’t usually post comments without censoring them, but I let this one pass. The one thing I would point out is is that I think the $14M is the entire marketing budget for the year, not just the brand itself. But aside from that issue you may have some valid points.

  • http://jeremyvotaw.com Jeremy Votaw

    To Eran: There is so much more that goes into advertising than a logo. Including media buys and printed materials distributed to convention marketing and then traditional tourism marketing. 14 million will go pretty fast. (I am not sure where that number came from?) And so W might net about 20 to 25% of that number. In my experience they deserve a lot more than that having to work with government – who in mind are the toughest client to work with. Attorney fees alone probably dropped that 20 – 25% guestimate to 18 – 21% net.

  • http://www.eransworld.com/blogger.htm eran

    Believe me I understand what goes into Branding and Advertising… It’s been a day or two since I fell of the turnip truck.

    My point is: if you start with a piece of poo no matter what you do to polish it up, deep down it’s still a piece of poo. The logo immediately reminded me of the boxing equipment company Everlast. Not very good in my mind… especially from an ad agency that is so… “Renown”. The Trib wrote that W Communications was so high and mighty that they didn’t travel to Utah to get the account but Utah had to go to NY. Don’t you think Nike would be angry if the swoosh reminded you of another company?

    The number came from the SLTrib…

    “Deserve has got nothing to do with it”, William Munny in the movie “Unforgiven”. Doesn’t everyone deserve to make a $1,000,000 an hour? There is little justice in life or business. And all I have to say is if there is no money in the project, why do it? It just doesn’t make much sense. I don’t know many people who work for free especially on $14 million projects.

    Is the government a pain to work with? Yes they are but that is “our money” and they should be careful with such.

  • Brian

    If Utah had to go to New York to see W Communications it must be because they were on vacation out there or something. Aren’t they headquartered here?

  • http://jeremyvotaw.com Jeremy Votaw

    Yeah – W is in Utah – and there only real account is the tourism account and they had some political pull for a while. Have you noticed most of their portfolio work is spec work? I guess they have done a pretty good job branding themselves to be much larger than they actually are…